Unmask the thugs: Blunkett

Police will have the power to unmask protesters in hoods or balaclavas under laws to be introduced by David Blunkett.

The Home Secretary wants to crack down against anarchists, hunt saboteurs and other activists who take to the streets hiding their faces.

Under the new laws, they will be forced to uncover if asked to by the police.

They will face the threat of a £1,000 fine or a month in prison if they refuse.

Existing laws give the police no powers to identify masked protesters, no matter how intimidating their behaviour.

They can be asked to show their faces only if they threaten 'serious violence'.

The new legislation will allow them to be unmasked if they threaten to commit 'any criminal offence'.

This will give the authorities a virtually free hand.

The policing of street protests has become a difficult challenge in the past two years.

Last year's May Day riots in London saw large swathes of Whitehall and Parliament Square trashed by demonstrators.

The riot forced a reappraisal of police tactics at this year's May Day demonstration, when protesters were bottled up for hours in a police cordon in Oxford Street.

Senior officers have told Mr Blunkett they feel their hands are tied because of their inability to demand to know the identities of potentially violent protesters.

Their attempts to keep track of known troublemakers by filming demonstrations and riots is constantly thwarted by the use of masks.

The Home Secretary won the approval of fellow ministers for the law change at a meeting of a Cabinet sub-committee earlier this week. The measure is expected to be part of a law and order Bill.

Masks and balaclavas have become standard issue among protesters of all kinds.

'Hunt saboteurs have taken to going to the homes of people involved in fox-hunting and simply standing outside, with animal masks or balaclavas hiding their faces,' said one Government source.

'This is highly intimidatory behaviour but because they are not threatening serious violence the police have no power to ask them to show their faces and identify themselves. The new law will change that because in these circumstances the protesters could be guilty of threatening behaviour.

'If they refused to take off their masks they could be arrested and charged.'

The new law is certain to lead to protests from civil rights campaigners.

But Mr Blunkett is determined to tackle the issue head on.

Like Mr Blair - again witnessing street violence at the G8 summit in Genoa - he has no time for violent agitators who hijack legitimate protests simply to cause trouble.

He has been particularly angered by the behaviour of hunt saboteurs and animal rights activists who have embarked on a terror campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, which uses animals to test medical products.

Earlier this year Brian Cass, the boss of Huntingdon Life Sciences, was beaten up outside his home in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, by three thugs wielding baseball bats.

All three were wearing dark, camouflage-style clothing and balaclavas. Last night, leading lawyers said they believed the power to unmask could be introduced without breaching the human rights of protesters under European and British law.

Jonathan Exten-Wright of law firm DLA said: 'The human rights enshrined in the European Convention which deal with freedom of expression, assembly and association are all qualified by the need for the authorities to prevent crime, and maintain law and order and public safety.

'For that reason it seems quite feasible to introduce a power for police along these lines without falling foul of the Human Rights Convention.'